On the Fence

Chapter 34

He wasn’t expecting that request. I could tell by the way the color drained from his face. “Okay. What exactly do you want to know?”

“What happened that night? There’s something more than you’re telling me.”

“Charlie, I’ve tried to talk to you about this before. You weren’t ready. It nearly broke you.”

“I’m ready now.” I said it confidently, even though I felt everything but.

“There’s no easy way to say this.” He raked a hand through his hair as if trying to prove his statement. “Your mother . . .” He hesitated. “She was very sick.”

My ears started to buzz and my head felt fuzzy, just like it had when I was ten. I wasn’t going to let that stop me this time. “I don’t understand.”

He took my hand, his grip soft but sure. His eyes went glassy and that terrified me. I held my breath.

“It wasn’t an accident.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. What that single sentence implied was something I didn’t want to accept. “How do you know?”

“She left a note.”

Like a tidal wave, everything made sense. My mom was depressed. I knew this. It’s why I had no memories of her as a child—she wasn’t around. She didn’t want to be.

The police radio crackled in my ear and my dad flipped a switch, turning it off. The dashboard of the car pushed against my forehead, and I tried to press against it harder, hoping the pain would rid me of the thoughts.

“Charlie.”

I shook my head back and forth.

“Charlie. You knew this. Come here.” He pulled me against his chest. “You’ve known this. Breathe. It’s going to be okay.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure it was ever going to be okay again. My mom left me. On purpose.

My dad smelled like . . . my dad—a cross between a musky cologne and cinnamon gum. This was the smell of my entire childhood. He was my childhood. My life. I remembered him at every important event, every unimportant event. All the places she never was.

He shifted a little, his hand moving to wipe at his face. I didn’t want to look up and see if that meant he was crying. I couldn’t face seeing his pain when mine was already too unbearable. But I didn’t have to look up; I heard it in his voice when he said, “And she almost took you with her.”

That statement had me sitting up faster than I intended, blood rushing up the back of my head. “I was in the car.” I had realized that right away, but I hadn’t put the pieces together. No wonder I’d been trying to deny this my whole life. The dreams. The way I could picture that car spinning, glass flying, so perfectly. Her hand lying there limp in front of me. It wasn’t just a dream. It was a memory.

“She didn’t know,” he said quickly. “You snuck into the car. You were supposed to be in bed.”

I let out a little breath. At least she didn’t try to take me with her. That thought didn’t help at all. But it was something, and right now I felt a whole lot of nothing. I was numb.

It was a quiet drive back to the shop, where we’d left the other car. My dad kept opening his mouth to say something and then shutting it again. Eventually he spit out, “You have questions. What are they?”

I hadn’t thought about questions yet, but I knew I needed to. “Did she see someone? Try to get help?”

“She saw someone regularly. But she was constantly going on and off her medication. She would think she was better. I had you see someone too, right after she died. I had all of you see someone.”

Yes, I had memories of the gray-haired man having me draw pictures. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I tried, Charlie. You weren’t ready. You shut down. You climbed on the roof and scared me to death. I decided to wait after that. You were doing so well, I didn’t want this to define you.”

“I feel stupid. I’m so weak.”

“Charlie. No.” His hand went to my shoulder. “No, you’re not. What child wants to think that about their mom? She was your world.”

No. She wasn’t. She was barely part of my life. “Jerom, Nathan . . . Gage?”

“They know.”

I coughed to try to get rid of the lump in my throat and then put my cheek against the passenger-side window. “I feel stupid.” No wonder my dad and brothers thought I was so breakable. Why they protected me so much. “I’m sorry I wasn’t another boy.”

“What?” We pulled up to the store and he put the car in park.

“I didn’t turn out right. I’m broken.”

“Oh, Charlie. No.”

“I found that book in your room. Carol, your ‘coworker.’”

His cheeks went red. “Baby, that’s just to help me talk to you about girl things. And I’m obviously not very good at it. I just wanted to do it right. To be what you needed. I know I’m not. I’m not your mom. She would’ve done it better.”

I grabbed his hand in mine so tightly. I wouldn’t cry again. “You did it right,” I choked. “You did it right.”

He took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead. “I must’ve done something right, because look at the amazing person you turned out to be. Confident, smart, athletic, and beautiful. I love you, kid.”

“Love you too.”

He brushed at my cheeks. “I need to get back to work. I’m going to call one of your brothers to come get you.”

“No. Dad. Please. I need to drive. I need to sit with this whole mom thing alone.”

He pulled his brows down low.

“Please. I’ll be careful. I won’t be long.”

He nodded. “I’ll send out an APB in an hour if you’re not home.”

I rolled my eyes, but then realized he was serious. “Or you could just call me.” I held up my cell phone. I knew he had one of those tracker things on my phone anyway, so it wasn’t like my location would be a secret.

He nodded. He’d send someone for me in an hour. So I’d have to make sure I was faster.

“Oh, and Charlie?” he said as I opened the door.

“Yeah?”

“You’re grounded until the party.”

I looked at the ad sitting on the console between us, crumpled into a ball. “I know. I’m sorry I lied to you.”

He smiled. The first one I’d seen since he picked me up. “We all make mistakes.”

I climbed out of his car and headed for mine. I glanced at Linda’s store, knowing I should go in and explain, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it in that moment. First I had somewhere else to be.

I stared at her headstone. I hadn’t visited her grave in over a year, so I thought maybe I’d remembered the wording wrong, but there it was, etched in stone: Loving Mother.

Anger surged through me. Those words seemed like the biggest lie in the world to me. If she was so loving, why did she do what she did? She was selfish. I kicked a rock and it ricocheted off her headstone.

I heard the crunch of gravel behind me.

“It hasn’t even been thirty minutes,” I said, irritated my dad couldn’t just give me an hour to think this through.

“He told me not to come yet, but I was worried.”

I turned toward Jerom. His face was full of concern.

I wasn’t only angry at my mom. I was angry at my brothers, too. They had kept this from me. “I’m fine.”

“Really?”

“No. I’m screwed up.”

“Charlie.” His voice was gruff. “Don’t do that. You are not screwed up. You have every right to be upset about this.”

“But you think I’m weak. It’s why you’re so protective of me. You think I’m on the verge of breaking.”

“No. You’re strong. Too strong, sometimes. You think you need to hold on to this all by yourself.” He put his arm around my shoulder and stared at the headstone with me. “Let us be here for you.”

“But that’s the thing. We’re not here for each other, are we? I thought we were the best family in the world, but you guys didn’t even tell me.”

“Dad tried. We just thought it would be better if we waited.”

“Until?”

He sighed, obviously frustrated too. “I don’t know. But, Charlie, this”—he pointed to my mom’s headstone—“isn’t our family. This is something that happened to our family. Our family was strong before this, and it’s still strong. Nothing has changed that.”

I read the phrase on her headstone over and over again. Loving Mother. “My whole life I thought she would’ve been my best friend. That she would’ve taught me all the things I needed to know about being a woman. And in a way, it made me resent Dad a little. That he couldn’t do it like she would’ve. And now I find out that she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to be my mom. I’m mad at her.”

He squeezed my shoulder and his breath hitched. I’d never seen my brother even come close to crying, so it surprised me. “You have every right to be.”

“I don’t know how to get over it.”

“You can only go through it.”

Sleep was my friend. I didn’t remember the last time I had slept so much. Especially since I hadn’t done anything active at all that day. I thought I would have the nightmare about my mom over and over, but I didn’t. I didn’t dream at all. A fogginess had settled into my head and I wanted to get lost in it.

My dad must’ve told my brothers to leave me alone, because no one bothered me for hours. A strip of sunlight had traveled up my body through the day and had finally found its way to my face. All I had to do was shut my curtains all the way to get rid of it, but I couldn’t find the energy to get up. I was so tired. Instead, I just pulled my pillow over my head.

A knock sounded at my door. I didn’t respond. If it were Gage, he’d just walk in. The door creaked open.

“What?” I asked, my voice muffled from the pillow. I wondered if they were all going to take turns trying to fix me.

“Hey.” It was Braden.

I was glad my head was under the pillow, because my cheeks colored at his presence. I waited to get it under control, then moved the pillow. “Hi.”

He eased all the way into my room. “What happened the other night?”

The other night? I searched my memory for what he might be referring to and remembered we were supposed to meet by the fence. “I fell asleep. Sorry.” I probably didn’t sound as sorry as I should have, because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself.

He held a soccer ball and started bouncing it back and forth between his knees. “Wanna play?”

He was trying to cheer me up, and although I found it really sweet, I didn’t feel like hanging out with Braden right then. It would just be one more reminder of something else I couldn’t have and how much my life sucked right now. “Not really. But tell everyone hi for me.”

“Well, that would be hard since ‘everyone’ won’t be there. It’s just me.”

Even worse. “Gage is here, I think. He’d probably be up for it.”

He kneed the ball in a high arc and it landed on the end of my bed. “Gage isn’t here, and I want you.”

I couldn’t stop my cheeks from blushing this time. He needed to watch his phrasing. He didn’t seem to notice, because he added, “Come on. Please.” He went to my closet and pulled out my shoes.

“I’m fine, Braden. I don’t need cheering up. I promise.”

He sat on the bed next to me, pushing my hair into my face. “Why would you need cheering up? Did something happen?”

He hadn’t heard? I smacked his hands away and pushed my hair back. “Nothing I want to rehash right now.”

“Well, see, I’m not here to cheer you up. I’m here for completely selfish reasons.” He held out his hand and gave me puppy-dog eyes. “Don’t make me beg.”

I kind of wanted to see him beg. I stared at his hand. He kept it steady, hovering in the air between us. I took it.